PR and social media are still among some of the most cost effective marketing dollars a small to mid-size client can spend

PR and social media are still among some of the most cost effective marketing dollars a small to mid-size client can spend. It’s about building and capturing mindshare, coming across as a credible resource and a good interview. Stories that run can put a client on the map. We’re fortunate to work with clients who are fearless when it comes to giving interviews. The more interesting the answers, the more likely reporters and editors include them in the story. I have one client in particular who has been given a nickname by certain reporters who call when they want a strong opinion on an issue. Small and midsize clients benefit most from agencies that specialize in those clients. The larger agencies put their best talent on the larger accounts. Wouldn’t you rather have the best talent an agency can offer?Continue Reading»

Executive Briefings

If Your PR Isn’t Generating Leads and Web Traffic – Is It Worth The Investment?

A comprehensive external PR and social media program creates brand and company awareness with key buying audiences. These programs also drive measureable web traffic and prospect leads. Again, nirvana! The thing that small and medium companies need to be careful of is not investing in PR for the sake of PR. They need to be sure they are building a program that is integrated with marketing, branding, lead-generation and web SEO. We aren’t attempting to boil the ocean by offering such a broad range of services and not every BridgeView client utilizes every service that we offer. Our philosophy, which is based on close to 20 years in the high tech market, is that PR, social media, marketing and web SEO need to work hand-in-hand to drive lead-generation at some level. We understand the importance of brand visibility (awards, feature stories, speaking opportunities, optimized news releases, social media campaigns, etc.), but this is the easy part! At BridgeView, we take PR and brand visibility to a new level by mapping it to website traffic and prospect lead reports. Continue Reading»

How effective communications strategies and activities can help establish leadership in respective markets

With communications, you need to be creative in everything you do – from the way we approach client challenges to media pitches to basic writing. It’s easy to fall into a pattern where you focus on the workload and the effort required to do the basics and you lose sight of the big picture and what it takes to make a difference. At Welz & Weisel Communications, we encourage our team to do things differently, to share ideas and to brainstorm activities that will help separate our clients from the pack of other IT vendors. That said, these different ideas can be dangerous. You need to make sure that your actions are credible and not viewed negatively. I really enjoy the technical details of our clients, and start from there when proposing an idea. I want to make sure that it supports the company’s technical differentiators and is credible to the buyer. At the end of the day, if the customer or prospect doesn’t care or doesn’t believe what we are saying, then the activity, regardless of how creative, is a failure. Continue Reading»

PR and social media are still among some of the most cost effective marketing dollars a small to mid-size client can spend

PR and social media are still among some of the most cost effective marketing dollars a small to mid-size client can spend. It’s about building and capturing mindshare, coming across as a credible resource and a good interview. Stories that run can put a client on the map. We’re fortunate to work with clients who are fearless when it comes to giving interviews. The more interesting the answers, the more likely reporters and editors include them in the story. I have one client in particular who has been given a nickname by certain reporters who call when they want a strong opinion on an issue. Small and midsize clients benefit most from agencies that specialize in those clients. The larger agencies put their best talent on the larger accounts. Wouldn’t you rather have the best talent an agency can offer? Continue Reading»

How an external agency can really shine and pay exponential dividends for the thriving small to medium entity

Most often, small and medium sized companies do not have copious staff resources and wear many hats as a result. Being spread too thin is not conducive to promotion and marketing strategy as it requires daily management and creativity. General marketing staff cannot keep up with all the various mediums, frequent editorial beat changes, short deadlines, and stories that pop up randomly. An external agency provides media relationships, strategic counsel, candid feedback, prior expertise with similar client issues, and most importantly focus to maximize opportunities and garner available exposure. This is where an external agency can really shine and pay exponential dividends for the thriving small to medium entity. Continue Reading»

How an effective campaign can deliver value in key areas such as lead generation, brand awareness, and content-driven SEO

Over three years ago a client told us that traditional PR was dead. Print publications were folding, advertising dollars were declining and conferences were taking a huge hit – all impacting how a company delivered its message and maintained a competitive market position. While this was an overstatement, it was clear that advancement in communications was needed. Ventana took our customers comment as a challenge set out to create a proactive approach to the problem that would unify communications, social media marketing and organic search marketing for rapid, sustainable results. Hence the Ventana New Media Engine was born. Ventana New Media is a patent-pending solution that gives enterprises a strategic message delivery platform that distributes content across hundreds or thousands of new media sites harnessing a framework of high business value new media sites in just a few clicks. This allows organizations to rapidly expand corporate presence, increase brand awareness, leadership position among prospects, customers and partners for long-term success and business value. Continue Reading»

Industry Voices

"First, execution is valued orders of magnitude over talk and ideas. Second, try to be in the right place at the right time for your customer/ company. Third, move fast and try not to break stuff."

Fred Hsu, President and CEO - Manage.com

"Depending on your market opportunity, growth can occur from a variety of factors. However, to start growing fast I suggest focusing on four key principles: 1) solve a big, specific customer problem; 2) work at easily communicating your business value; 3) iterate often before making plans to expand your go-to-market base; and 4) take advantage of strategic partnerships to increase your market reach. Today’s companies are all connected in some way, and figuring out your place in this ecosystem is paramount to selecting the right partners and delivering a better experience for your end customers. For private companies, acting as a lone wolf doesn't work. The top players understand who their customers are and how to best serve them, which for private providers means creating a best-of-breed solution that solves targeted problems very well. Your solution can’t end there, however; you need to work on integrating it within existing ecosystems to offer customers access to a complete suite of best-of-breed solutions. The fact is that the majority of businesses, large and small, prefer a best of breed approach, so companies that create a strong product and tie it into an ecosystem with complementary products will experience very high growth potential. In short: to grow quickly, companies need to step back, identify and solve big problems and then develop potential partnerships that will drive the fastest growth to expand their customer base."

Lou Guercia, President and CEO - Scribe Software

"First, define your market and test the market with a trial offering and variations of your offering to your target audience. Consider an offering that can scale and has a marketplace big enough to support it. Your product should meet a need, have a proper price/to value offering, and your company must have high customer service standards. Find and retain the right people that will allow you to scale, constantly refine processes for improved efficiency, and lastly, enjoy what you are doing - it will show and have a positive impact on both your employees and your clients."

Jeffrey Lacy, President and CEO - ECI - Electronic Commerce, Inc.

"AMAX positions itself as a trustworthy manufacturing and solutions provider to our customers. AMAX’s strength is in engineering expertise and solution design. The technology industry is demanding the ability to build large-scale enterprise-ready solutions that are fully integrated on the hardware/software level and delivered turnkey, and AMAX is able to do this on a global scale. Growth comes from consistently delivering well-engineered and designed solutions targeting today’s specific IT and business requirements while maintaining the highest level of quality and performance."

Jean Shih, President - AMAX

"What promotes growth can vary significantly depending on your market. In any industry, what promotes growth is first and foremost having a vision for growth and executing on that vision. Long term growth in the engineering and manufacturing services market comes from organizations looking to build strategic partnerships to develop their new products or next generation products. To maintain and grow these strategic alliances, engineering and manufacturing services organizations’ must have a well-defined process that is easily articulated to clients and flawlessly executed upon. Continual growth is attributed to having the right resources on a project at the right time, doing good work for clients, and completing projects on-time and on budget."

Alex Kunczynski, President - D&K Engineering

"SADA places engineering, innovation and customer service at the core of our business model - we’re able to differentiate ourselves from other key players in the field of cloud computing by being the first to go to market with the solutions which address clients’ business needs and pain-points they may be experiencing. It’s key to stay ahead of the curve, while also focusing on execution and exceptional service."

Tony Safoian, CEO and President - SADA Systems

"Enthusiasm and passion are the natural catalysts for growth, and every fast growing company I know has those two elements in abundance. If your employees have it, it leads to marketing and PR growth because you then have a company that can’t wait to interact with the broader market to validate the internal belief. If your customers have it the sales growth will also naturally follow, because the appetite that the marketing and PR efforts created can be easily converted to revenue because of the positive feedback from other customers. Moreover, we all know that enthusiasm is infectious; it’s the force-multiplier behind all other efforts, including recruiting, financing, and all other areas of company operations. My advice to fuel growth is to make sure you’re listening both inside and outside the company – if the passion and enthusiasm are lacking, dig deeper to find it. Without it achieving aggressive growth targets is much more difficult."

Walter Angerer, CEO - Quorum

"Invest in the people. Creating a working environment that energizes and excites different types of people and allows for collaboration - whether it’s across departments or across the globe - is a necessity. It promotes employee success, innovation and growth, which in turn drives customer success and business growth. Furthermore, culture that is measurable is manageable, so take continual surveys of what cultural success looks like and share those best practices globally."

Joe Zawadzki, CEO - MediaMath

"Innovation & new products development - commitment to ongoing innovation is key success factor to growth. Being flexible to changes when they occur is another important factor. • Spotting new business opportunities- it’s crucial to always be on the lookout for the next best business opportunities."